In this exercise, I'll show you how to create a compound shape and why you wouldwant to do so using a Pathfinder operation.I've gone ahead and saved my progress as Violet Ringo.ai found inside the10_pathfinder folder.I'm going to go ahead and zoom out a little bit so that I can take in Ringo andthe submarine at the same time.Let's say that I want to join Ringo and submarine together.Now, I want them to be yellow.So, I'm going to move Ringo in back of the submarine, here inside the Layerspanel, just the simplest way to go.

Then, I'll grab my Black Arrow tool and I'll Shift+Click on the submarine,because I already have Ringo selected.So, now I have both Ringo and the submarine selected.I'll go over here to the Pathfinder panel and I'll click on Unite in order tocombine those two closed paths into one.That goes ahead and fuses them together into a Compound Path.Now why is this all of a sudden called Compound Path?I'll go ahead and undo that operation for just a moment by pressing Ctrl+Z,Cmd+Z on the Mac.Remember, just a couple of exercises ago when I united the pipes with theemerald submarine, that resulted in this thing called Path right there.

It was not called a Compound Path, it's just called standard everyday average Path.Whereas, once we get Ringo involved for some reason, we end up with a Compound Path.Why in the world is that and what does that mean?What that means is that we have multiple sub paths that are combined into oneoverarching path in Illustrator's mind.The reason that that's necessary is because we have paths that are cuttingholes in other paths.For example, if I zoom in here on Ringo's legs, you can see that the interiorportion of those legs is cutting a hole out of the larger Ringo/submarine shape.

We also have another little hole right there at the bottom of his boot, andthat's cutting a hole in the larger shape as well.So, we have two holes going on here inside of this compound path and that's allIllustrator is doing.It's just telling us we've got a Compound Path.There you go, figured you would want to know.However, you can't twirl it open. Notice that.You can't gain access to those various sub paths there inside the Layers panel.You can only get access to them using the White Arrow tool, if you want toedit them independently.Another disadvantage to this approach by the way is that Ringo and the submarineare permanently fused together.

So let's say, I don't want Ringo standing over here on the right-hand side of the submarine.I want him over on the left-hand side of the submarine, the aft end.Well, I can't really move him after the fact with a Compound Path, but I can ifI had been using a Compound Shape.So, I'm going to go ahead and press Ctrl+Z, Cmd+Z on the Mac to undo that operation.Then, notice here, if I hover over Unite, inside the Pathfinder operation, andthis is true by the way for any of the Shape modes.If you hover over any of these guys, whether it's Unite or Minus Front orIntersect or Exclude and I'll be showing you how all these work, you'll see thismessage that says, hey, you can Alt+ Click or on the Mac you can Option+Click tocreate a compound shape.

And that's what we're going to right now.Alt+Click or Option+Click on Unite in order to merge those two closed pathoutlines into a single compound shape and notice, we now see the words CompoundShape here inside the Layers panel.Also notice that you can twirl the Compound Shape open in order to gain accessto each one of the Paths inside of that Compound Shape, which is remarkable.Now what I'd like to do is select Ringo and move him to a different location.Notice, his feet are now intact.So we have access to that entire Ringo silhouette. Now albeit,It's colored yellow after the submarine.

So you can still only associate one group of Fill and Stroke attributes andeffects and so on to a Compound Shape.In other words, Ringo and the submarine have to be filled, stroked and so on the same.However, they are independent of each other.Now to prove that, I'll go ahead and click off the Shapes to deselect them.Then I'll click on Ringo once again.Well, that went ahead and selected the entire Compound Shape, because I'mworking with the Black Arrow tool.So, if I want to edit Ringo independently, I could either get the WhiteArrow tool and then I could click off the Shapes to deselect them and thenAlt+Click or Option+Click on Ringo to select his entire path outline, againindependently of the submarine.

Or I could just meatball Ringo here inside the Layers panel.Then, I can move them to a different location such as this.So he remains an independent path outline.However, because he is part of a Compound Shape along with the submarine, he andthe submarine are continuously fused together.Alright, just to keep things clear, I'm going to go ahead and rename the bottompath ring, and I'm going to rename this top path submarine like so.In the next exercise, I'm going to show you how to change the relationshipbetween the two paths inside of a Compound Shape by applying yet anotherPathfinder operation.

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Author

Released

5/28/2010

Illustrator is the gold-standard vector graphics program that is deep and complex. Fortunately, nobody knows the software like award-winning book and video author Deke McClelland. Join Deke as he explores such indispensable features as artboards, layers, line art, transformations, and the Pen tool. Gain expertise with real-world projects that makes sense. Exercise files accompany the course.

Topics include:

Creating great art using basic tools

Brushing and building organic artwork

Scaling and rotating path outlines

Creating and formatting text

Drawing articulated paths with the Pen tool

Combining paths with Pathfinder operations

Printing and exporting to the web

Skill Level Beginner

23h 12m

Duration

2,651,837

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Q: I was not able to locate my saved shortcuts and cannot locate the folder I created to place the preferences into. The Illustrator steps are clear and using the search function I should be able to find the folder, but it cannot be located. How can I find the shortcuts file on a Mac?

A: To search for the shortcuts file on a Mac, press Cmd+F. Then change
the option that says "Kind" in the top-left corner to System Files by choosing "Other" and selecting "System Files" from the menu.

Then change the next option to "Are Included." Search for "KYS." The search should find any files that were installed.

Q: The instructions for installing the dekeKeys don't work on my computer (which is running Mac OS X Lion). Is there an update to these?

A: The dekeKeys distributed with this course will still work for Lion. You just need to add them to a slightly different folder than in previous versions of OS X.

Open a new Finder window and choose Go > Go to Folder. Type the following file path exactly as written below. Copying and pasting may result in an error.

~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings/en_US

Move and/or copy/paste the dekeKeys to this folder and follow the rest of the instructions as outlined in the video, "Installing the dekeKeys keyboard shortcuts."